Business as Mission Site

Entrepreneurs on Mission: Barriers to Break Through

by Mark Russell

There comes a day when we sit back and ask ourselves what we are going to do with our lives. In a sense, I am still asking myself that question. But many years ago I felt a nudge, a call if you will, to spend time in cross-cultural contexts advancing the gospel. At the time, I had no idea what that entailed. The only role models I had to look to were the missionaries I had met in Paraguay. They were either medical doctors or preachers. As a business student, it seemed I would have to leave behind my business interests and develop a new set of skills.  

A few years into my overseas ministry, I began to ask myself some new questions about why couldn’t one be a businessperson and a kingdom builder at the same time.   At the time I was working in a traditional missionary setting, but quickly found that a lot of people resonated with my search to integrate business and mission. Later, I realized that people all over the world were working independently to the same end. It seems God is up to something.

My Mission, My Business

Conversation with Doug Seebeck

There have been some great books published on business as mission in the last year – some great books giving foundations, biblical basis, step by step how-tos, model cases and much more… My Business, My Mission, also published last year, is a wonderful complement to these. Written by Doug Seebeck, Executive Director of Partners Worldwide and co-author Timothy Stoner, My Business, My Mission tells the stories of the cross-cultural partnerships nurtured through the work of Partners Worldwide…. These are stories of lives changed and poverty defeated through sustainable business. This is a book which looks full in the face of transformation through business and it is stirring stuff!

I had the privilege of chatting with Doug Seebeck about some of the themes that jump out of the book. These are themes that resonate in the wider marketplace ministry and business as mission movement and are significant for all of us:

The ongoing need for affirmation and mobilisation
My Business, My Mission tells the story of business people from all around the world, and yet over and over again there is a breakthrough moment. Doug Seebeck describes it this way “When business people ‘get it’ – that God wants them to be the way they are, to be these entrepreneurs, that God wired them to be the way they are and that they are exactly where he wants them to be... It’s like a celebration and they begin to live differently and they do their business differently”. 

Business as Mission: A Threefold Mandate

by Mats Tunehag

Business is more than making money, at least it should be. According to the “father of capitalism” Adam Smith, businesses exist to serve the general welfare.  
 
The computer pioneer Dave Packard said: ”Many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being. People get together and exist as a company so that they are able to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish separately - they make a contribution to society.”  ....

Interview with Neal Johnson

Author of "Business as Mission"

We talk with Neal Johnson about what motivated him to write his new book 'Business as Mission: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice' and asked him how he sees it contributing to the business as mission movement today.

Neal – you have done all sorts of things in your life, including banking, business, diplomacy and practicing law internationally and in the US, but now you are Dean of the School of Business at Bakke Graduate University  in Seattle – what motivates you?  

Clearly the thing that motivates me now and has for the past 20 years is my passion for Christ in the marketplace, especially business as mission.  Looking back on my earlier life, I would have given anything if  someone had taken me aside and said ‘Neal, have you heard about business as mission? Do you know you can do both business and mission—you don’t have to choose between them—that God is actually calling you to do both?’ ....